


(we could have had) Another Story

by 23Murasaki



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Content Warning: Ethan Being Himself, Gen, I tagged the ship but they don't even kiss properly kill me, Lots of characters show up in passing but I'm not tagging them bc they're not the point, M/M, References to Drugs, The Author Regrets Everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 21:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15204299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/23Murasaki/pseuds/23Murasaki
Summary: Sometimes the stars just align and you meet the exact wrong person at the exact wrong moment. Other times you don't.(Or: Five ways Giles never met Ethan Rayne, plus one way he did.)





	1. Before They Act

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (or: the one where they meet as tiny tiny children.)

When he's is all grown up, Rupert thinks, he's not going to have the kind of lame parties where you pay someone to play piano and all the food is tiny and people talk about logistical applications. Both Gran and Father say it's very important that he acts proper at this stupid lame party though, because it's a stupid lame party for Watchers and he has to make a good impression 'cause he's gonna be one someday. (But he's going to be a cool Watcher, Rupert thinks, not like Mr. Jenkins who is telling the story about the fencer and the polgara demon for the fifth time since four o'clock.)

So he's making a good impression by eating exactly one of everything and sitting out of view, because when people say children should be seen and not heard they generally mean they shouldn't be seen or heard unless someone summons them to make a point. At eleven, he's got a pretty good grasp on what people mean when they say things and how there's usually not much overlap between one and the other.

"It simply strikes me as impractical," a tall and severe-looking woman is telling his gran. "Even the most rudimentary examination of the data available would suggest rogue actors can often be caught before they, er, act." He's not sure what a rogue actor is, but it sounds interesting so he leans around the potted plant for a better view.

"Mina, I understand your concern," says Rupert's gran. "But it is simply a matter of logistics on our end. There are those on the Council who would not consider it a worthwhile use of our resources—" The woman, Mina, makes a sound that's midway between choking on her champagne and the name Roger, and Gran hides a smile. "Are you quite alright?"

"Of course, pardon me," says Mina, who is very much no longer choking. Who's Roger? Rupert only knows people by their last names, if that.

"As I was saying, some on the Council consider it best to deal with rogue actors in a more...final manner. Is there something or someone in particular that has given you cause for concern?"

"All I mean is that a stake and a bullet after the fact does nothing to prevent a rogue action from occurring," says Mina. "Prevention against cure, I suppose."

"But were the Council to prioritize prevention, the point would turn to liability," says Gran, and she and Mina sweep into the crowd. Whatever. It wasn't that interesting anyway, whatever they were talking out, and oh gods Mr. Jenkins is heading for the tiny quiches, Rupert knows better than to make eye contact there. Apparently someone else doesn't, because a moment later he hears Mr. Jenkins say entirely too joyfully:

"Say, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce, have I told you about—"

"Yes," says another man coldly. "You have told me, you have told everyone in the room, I would suggest you refrain from telling us yet again."

"Do be polite, Roger," says a man Rupert thinks might be called Mr. Travers. Mr. Wyndam-Pryce (same Roger?) looks murderous, and Rupert decides it's a good time to make himself scarce (with the entire plate of tiny quiches, though, it's not like anyone's going to be eating them if there's an argument).

He escapes out the door to a back stairwell, where there's couple kissing (ew). They break apart at the sound of the door opening, and the woman (girl? she looks young. maybe they're trainees, he wasn't introduced to trainees) makes a shushing gesture.

"I'm just going downstairs," he tells her. "Do you, um, want a quiche." Neither she nor the young man do, possibly because they want to continue kissing each other (...ew) and Rupert beats a hasty escape down the stairs and out the back door.

Outside, the wind sends a chill through him, but it's November, what does he expect. It's quiet, too. Not the same kind of quiet as at home—from his place in the alley he can hear cars on the street and distant voices and footsteps, but it's quiet in its own way. He wishes he were dressed for exploring, not for lame parties, and vows to be the sort of cool Watcher who doesn't wear shiny shoes and a waistcoat ever in his life of his own free will. If he weren't in his stupid nice clothes, he thinks, he'd run out into the London street and be swallowed by it, vanish into the quiet noise and never hear a lecture or the word logistics again. But he can't, and also he's getting really cold just standing there so he retreats into the doorway (less wind) and shoves an entire tiny quiche into his mouth.

And then chokes on it, because something makes a clanging sound really close by. (So maybe Gran is right about Watchers being careful with their food, oops.) He tries to not-die but also not stop paying attention to whatever clanged which ends with him sitting on the doorstep awkwardly coughing into his elbow while watching the alleyway for any signs of motion.

For a moment there's nothing.

Then the shadows under a balcony shift and Rupert makes direct eye contact with something—someone, someone, it's a person— Rupert blinks and suddenly it's just a kid, a skinny kid around his height with big black eyes and a tattered coat.

"H-hi," Rupert manages after a few attempts. The kid blinks at him silently, and something reads wrong (maybe it's the coat not fluttering in the wind, maybe it's the eyes that are magic-black and glassy, maybe it's a gut reaction to the magic that hangs around the kid like a dark cloud that Rupert can't quite see). "Um. I—I didn't know you were there." More silence. He thinks maybe the noises from the street have stopped, or maybe he's just stopped hearing them (or maybe he's fallen through a doorway into a Dreaming court, and the kid facing him is something from the more than one sort of outside, a changeling-child or worse), but he doesn't like this kind of quiet. "I—"

But you're not supposed to tell them your name. You're not supposed to eat their food or drink their wine or dance to their music, and you're definitely not supposed to sleep where they can snatch you up or follow where they lead. But there isn't a rule about offering them your food, Rupert thinks abruptly, or playing a song for them or asking their name, is there? There isn't a rule for when they sleep, if they sleep. (There aren't generally rules about tiny quiches, either.)

"Are you, um, hungry?" Rupert asks warily, holding the platter out in front of him. And that's how he learns two things: yes, the kid is very hungry, and no one and nothing in the world can look ethereal and mildly frightening while aggressively stuffing its face with unnecessarily fancy pastry. (That may be why there aren't rules about tiny quiches.)

And there's no rules about letting something from a Dreaming court follow where you lead, so once the kid's demolished all the quiches Rupert pulls open the door again and offers the kid a cup of tea because that's all he can think of to do. (They're a bit young for wine, aren't they? Up close, he thinks the kid's a bit younger than him, even.) He still doesn't get an answer in words, but the kid grabs his arm with cold, thin hands and doesn't let go, which is almost a yes.

\--

Half an hour later, once Rupert has safely barricaded them in Mrs. Galveston's really big and currently really empty kitchen with tea and more food, the kid says thank you very quietly and Rupert just about falls off his chair in shock.

"You can talk!" he yelps. "I mean, you're welcome. Are, um, are you feeling better?"

"Better?" the kid echoes. "...Better. Yes." The silence isn't exactly comfortable.

"What's your name?" Rupert asks, because there's no rule about asking them, it's technically not wrong.

"I don't—" the kid starts uncertainly, then stops. "...I'm, I'm called Ethan. Who are you?" (And you're not supposed to tell them your name, but curled up in a kitchen chair two rooms away from a lame Watcher party Ethan looks human and sick and scared, and he's shaking in his too-big coat and his eyes may be magic-black but there are bags and bruises under them.)

"I'm Rupert." He smiles and (are there rules about handshakes? there are rules about bargains.) offers his hand properly, like a Watcher should. Ethan's hand isn't cold anymore, but he's so thin Rupert thinks (distantly) that a particularly strong yank could snap his wrist. "It's nice to meet you."

"Is it?" Ethan asks, and then he collapses into hysterical giggles. (And collapses is exactly the right word, because he slides off his chair and sinks to the ground and flops limp against Rupert's shoulder, laughter turning to sobs, when he tries to shake some sense into him. That's how they're sitting when Gran finds them, which turns out to be the least of the problems Ethan brings with him but that's another story.)


	2. A Better Way To Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (or: the one where Ripper never goes home)

London welcomes Ripper with open arms. Its underworld is dark and inviting, promising beautiful things to those who have wit and power and ambition, and Ripper has always had those. He loses his stutter along with his real accent somewhere along the way, and he falls into the dark the way Watchers often do: Slowly, step by easy step.

The jolt of a sudden collapse would likely have knocked him back into the light, or back out of the dark anyway, but Watchers often slide down the slippery slope without even realizing it. It's what happens to people who set themselves apart from the world.

So Ripper falls, slowly and surely, and it's a matter of a few years before he's utterly unrecognizable to those who once knew him. London, though, London knows him, and he knows it.

(That's what matters.)

\--

Ripper is aware of him the way a predator is aware of scavengers. There's a man called Rayne who lives somewhere in East End and sells chaos and disaster to the highest bidder. Eventually it suits Ripper to bid.

Rayne, when he's summoned, looks him up and down and folds his arms, unimpressed.

"Reputation like yours, I thought you'd look the part," he says dryly. (And he has no place being unimpressed, because he's thin as a beanpole with clothes that hang off him and a face that would only be handsome if there weren't skull-shadows in his cheeks. Ripper wants to punch him on sight. Rayne's so thin that he thinks it would snap him clean in half. )

"Reputation like yours, you do look the part," he replies coldly. Rayne grins, but his sharp dark eyes follow the magic that sparks at Ripper's fingertips. (Addict, Ripper thinks, with the cool arrogance of someone who has never considered stopping himself.)

"Maybe so," says Rayne. "But you need me." The grin widens, broad and hungry, and if Ripper had still had a Watcher's trained sense he would have been worried. (But that was long gone, sold along with his name. Ripper is a child of London's Dreaming courts, all magic and madness, or so he says.)

"Yes," Ripper concedes. "I need you to do a job for me."

"That's what they all say," says Rayne.

\--

Ripper tells him, after that inconsequential job is through, that he wants to burn the Council down. (He hasn't told anyone else, he hasn't thought about the Council in front of anyone else, Ripper doesn't belong to to it anymore so he doesn't think about it anymore.) (Rayne's different, somehow, he thinks he'd understand, somehow, and he does.)

"Sure," Rayne says. "Light 'em up. They want it, you know."

"Do they?" Ripper asks (and he hates that he's curious). Rayne kisses him on the forehead.

"Sure. A beacon in the dark, innit? What they always say. You'll show 'em beacons."

\--

The Council burns, and the last bit of Ripper's past goes with it. He leaves his grandmother's sword on the pyre and vanishes into the shadows. (Rayne's waiting for him there, smiling like there's nothing else in all the world. And there isn't, is there? This is the world they've chosen now.)

\--

By the time it comes crashing down around them, Ripper can't bring himself to care. His magic sings, and he knows it's just a half step further, just incrementally further, before the world breaks at his feet.

"You're not a human being anymore," the girl accuses, and he thinks he should know what she is (because she's not a human being anymore either, she's something grander now).

"Who'd want to be?" he asks. (And fool that he is, fool that he always was, he half turns to see where Ethan is, but Ethan's long gone.)

"I would," says the girl. "I would." (Ripper, briefly, wonders who she is. But that's another story.)


	3. The Getaway Car

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (or: the one where Rupert never ran away)

Two whole years outside the Council’s immediate influence, and Rupert still has a schoolboy’s dangerous tendency to obey direct orders. Most Watchers do, and Rupert is sensible enough to know that it’s dangerous, it leaves them open to all kinds of suggestion by darker forces.

But theory and practice are two different things, so when the man vaults a fence, weaves between cars, flings himself into Rupert’s front passenger seat and orders him to drive, he floors it and is three blocks away before he even bothers to think about it.

“Who are you running from?” he asks finally. The man blinks and grins.

“Cops,” he says lightly. “What’re all these weapons for?"

"Vampires," says Rupert. The stranger's grin broadens.

"Ooh," he drawls. "Fun." He sounds like he means it.

\--

In the next half hour, Rupert learns several things about his passenger. His name is Ethan, he's from London, and he has a charming laugh, a bag full of stolen magical artifacts, four warrants out for his arrest in three countries, and a sob story about an ex-boyfriend who sold him out after a heist gone wrong. He's completely at ease discussing all of this. (Rupert is 90% certain everything out of his mouth is utter bollocks.)

"And you?" Ethan asks cheerfully. "What's your story, green-eyes?"

"Don't have one," says Rupert, who thinks that he very much should dump Ethan at the next stoplight and probably take the bag of artifacts back to headquarters. (He doesn't do it, though.) "W-where, um, where are you trying to go?"

"Out of town, ideally," says Ethan with a languid shrug. "You going somewhere specific?" (He's not, because he's finished a two-week assignment with two days to spare, and that leaves him trapped in an in-between space). He should go report back. He should throw Ethan out of his car. He should, possibly, double back and see what exactly the man and his potentially hypothetical ex-boyfriend just robbed.

“Out of town,” he says instead, “ideally.” (And he’s never run away, and he thinks the Council has beaten every rebellious impulse out of him, but he has a guitar he doesn’t know how to play locked in his weapons trunk and a box of records bought with money meant for books and a pretty thief in his front passenger seat and two days in limbo.)

“Turn right up there, then,” says Ethan. “There’s a music festival on. Lots of noise, not a lot of clothes. Good place to find people. And lose ‘em.”

“Lose you,” Rupert says, somewhat proud of how steady and cold his voice sounds. Ethan’s grin grows, broad and hungry.

“If that’s what you want, green-eyes.”

“Rupert,” he corrects. “My name is Rupert.”

“Charmed,” says Ethan, and no he very much shouldn’t be.

\--

The festival is riculous. Rupert gets robbed twice, drinks more in six hours than he has in the past year, sprains his wrist trying to play guitar, and has a very serious chat about demons with a woman who is wearing only a leather skirt. It’s madness. He can’t remember the last time he’s had this much fun.

None of it counts, he’s convinced himself. It’s a liminal space in a liminal time, and he'll wake up on the other end of it like he's just waking from a particularly surreal dream. (Rupert's a Watcher, so he's a very good liar—so good he almost convinces himself.)

"Come on," Ethan insists at some ungodly hour when Rupert thinks they're both running on fumes. "I've got something to show you."

"I have to go tomorrow morning," says Rupert, because his two days of limbo are almost up. "I have to—"

"Then one last hurrah," says Ethan. "It'll be fun." So he goes, he follows, and he doesn't remember a thing.

What he does remember, forever and vividly, is waking up the next morning to learn Ethan took his wallet, his weapons, his car, all his extra clothes, and his books during the night and left him stranded in a wheat field. (Like he's a child of a Dreaming Court, Rupert thinks later, when he's particularly drunk and maudlin—you pass a night there, and wake to find the world has left without you and you've left something of yourself behind. But has he lost something of himself? That's another story.)


	4. Conditional Measures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (or: the one where Giles never became a Watcher.)

Rupert isn't stupid. He knows it's conditional, a conditional freedom—the London flat, the guitar, the stipend. They want to make sure he doesn't go off his head (again), they don't want another Watcher gone rogue (again), it's better for the family if he just flunks out of the Academy and does something quiet and harmless. (There's a ring on his finger that seals off his magic, the only explicit condition of his escape. The power that's his heritage can only be his if he takes the responsibility too, and he won't, he can't, not after what he's seen.)

So he stays in London, which is both far away and close enough and works shifts at the library because he won't take Gran's money and practices guitar late at night when he thinks he can almost feel the heartbeat of the city. (And he pretends he doesn't see London's underworld, so full of dark and beautiful things that are there for the taking if you have wit and ambition and power. He has none of the three, after all.) It's fine. It's not good, it could be better, but it's fine. He can live like this. (And he can't live like how he was, so maybe it's as good as it will get.)

And one day (he isn't sure which day, they blur) he's practicing by the open window when flowers fall at his feet. It's jarring enough to make him stop playing and stare instead. A voice drifts up from the street below.

"It's meant to be a call for encore, mate. Don't stop now!"

So he leans out the window to see who's talking (like an absolute idiot who didn't have most of a Watcher's education). There's a man under his window, framed under streetlights—he has eyes that look magic-black and a charming grin and a too-big velvet cloak around his shoulders. (Rupert isn't quite sure what to do about him.)

"D-do you, um, do you have any requests?" he asks (instead of saying anything actually smart). The man with the cloak laughs.

"Can't think of any," he admits. "Just like hearing you."

"Oh," says Rupert. (No, he really has no idea what to do about this.) "Um, thanks."

"Yeah," says the man in the cloak. (It's possible, actually, that he also doesn't know what he's doing. That's a relief.) "Er... Also congratulations on the face. Later!"

And he's gone. (Until the next night.) (And the night after that.) (And so forth.)

\--

Rupert has no idea what to do with a strange man who brings him flowers, and more annoyingly has no one to call to ask. So he does the stupid thing (the thing Watchers shouldn't do, but that's not who he is anymore) and invites him in (and sits with a cross up his sleeve and a stake stashed behind the armchair because he's not a Watcher but he's not an idiot).

The stranger isn't a vampire, though. He says he's an actor, and his name is Ethan, and he's not normally the type to do this sort of thing but he thinks Rupert's really something special. (Rupert is 90% certain everything out of his mouth is utter bollocks.)

"Are you, um, would you like something to eat?" Rupert asks. The answer is apparently a resounding yes, and Ethan eats everything he's offered with the air of a starving animal. He possibly is starving, actually—beanpole-thin and sharp-cheeked with too-bright eyes. (And Rupert almost invites him to stay, like an idiot, and it's probably abundantly clear on his face because Ethan presses a kiss to his forehead before he vanishes into the dark.)

\--

He may not have his own magic anymore, but he isn't blind to it. He knows flowers don't float up three stories and through a half-open window on their own, and he knows that Ethan's cloak should be wet when it rains, and he knows that it looks like when someone has glamours all over their face.

"You're a sorcerer," he says, statement rather than question, one night when Ethan's draped across his entire couch eating takeaway curry and Rupert's trying to play something by the Rolling Stones.

"You were too," Ethan shoots back lazily. "Why give it up?"

"Someone died," Rupert answers. (He hasn't told anyone else, he's never told anyone about what happened.) "People died. I could go back, if I pretended nothing happened, but I—I can't live like that."

"No," Ethan agrees, and his smile turns almost soft. "You're one of the honest ones, aren't you? Rare, that."

\--

He's Ethan's phonecall from prison, because of course he is (and of course 'actor' is code for 'conman') and he goes to rescue him because he is one of the honest ones. (It's a character flaw, it was a flaw at the Academy and a flaw in real life.)

"What did you do?" Rupert asks. Ethan grins, shrugs.

"Robbed a bunch of people, then stole the show," he says. Rupert glares at him.

"Is that what makes me special?" he asks. "That I'll bail you out?" (That he'll be his alibi?)

"Nah," Ethan says much too lightly. "But it's an added bonus."

(And then he stays and he plays nice until he doesn't, and then he's gone.) (And then he's gone until he's back and begging and repentant, and Rupert isn't stupid, he knows it's a vicious cycle, but what does he have to lose?)

\--

(He can set a watch by when Ethan turns up on his doorstep from his latest adventure, and he's taken to coming back with tricks and trinkets and spells and notes. There aren't, Rupert thinks, any tragedies to cloud Ethan's view of magic, so there's nothing that can really drag him down to reality.)

(Sometimes Rupert starts thoughts with 'in another life,' but he likes this one. He likes his books and the students who come by regularly and the occasional stilted phone calls to his family and the young Watchers who drop in to visit all quiet like they're keeping a secret and the fact that there's only occasionally a whirlwind of magic on his doorstep. He can build a real life like this. But life, now that’s another story.)


	5. California Dreaming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (or: the one where things are almost the same)

Giles sighs heavily and fights the urge to take off his glasses and turn bodily around. It wouldn’t make him hear any less, though, and as Buffy’s Watcher has has a responsibility to keep her friends out of trouble.

Especially when that trouble is magic. (He knows what sort of trouble magic can bring, and there’s a demon brand on his arm and standing order of flowers delivered yearly to poor Randall’s grave to prove it. Giles wouldn’t wish that experience, those memories on anyone.)

“But it isn’t the same thing,” Willow says, waving her hands excitedly. (Willow is a sweet, smart kid. Innocent, really, in a way that’s almost unbelievable for someone who grew up on a bloody Hellmouth.)

“It’s magic being magic, right?” Xander says dubiously. “I’m—Buffy, back me up here.” 

“Are there like, different flavors?” Buffy asks, California-blonde and California-silly. (And she’s so much brighter than that, Giles has to grit his teeth.)

“There are, um, different varieties and schools of magic, yes,” he cuts in. “But really, what’s all this about?”

“Willow found some guy,” says Buffy. “Not like that. He’s some kinda expert?”

“He said he’d teach me,” Willow says, all sincerity. “Since you won’t, and I don’t know anyone else who can do magic...” (It's an accusation, a point of blame, she means it as one and he takes it as one, and it strikes him that she’ll never understand why he can’t be the one to teach her.)

“Some kind of expert?” Giles prompts, tired.

“A real one!” Xander insists, even though he probably doesn’t know the first thing about it.

“Yeah,” says Buffy. “He’s English and he’s got business cards.”

“Ah,” says Giles. Well, that sure settles it.

\--

He still gets the business card from Buffy later and goes to check it out. It’s an address at the edge of town, a neatly kept house with an herb garden and roses winding their way up a trellis. Mr. Ethan Rayne must have been in Sunnydale a while, then. (It’s almost a relief, though really the mayor has been there a while too so it doesn’t mean anything much.)

The door opens before he knocks, the way sorcerers’ doors tend to. The man who answers it is tall and thin, with clever dark eyes and a charming smile that grows wide and hungry as his gaze rakes Giles over head to foot.

“You must be the Watcher,” he says. (Huh, Giles thinks stupidly. He is English.)

“Um, I, er...” He probably should have thought of what to say before showing up. That would have helped. “Yes. Um. Yes.”

“Ethan Rayne,” says the man, offering a hand to shake. (And Giles’s magic is supposed to be sealed off, technically, supposedly, but it still sparks and gleams at his touch and Giles’s breath catches in his throat.)

“Yes. That is, I, um, have your card,” says Giles. Rayne laughs.

“Cup of tea, green-eyes? Or do you need something stronger?”

“Rupert,” he corrects. “My name is Rupert.”

“Charmed,” says Rayne. “Do come in.”

\--

He learns a half dozen things about Rayne but none of them are useful in the light of day. Giles resolves to go back and ask some proper questions then stops that train of thought when he realizes just how long he spent in Rayne’s house. (Its hours, hours on end. He could swear it was barely thirty minutes, just a cup of tea—had it been tea?)

(What happened in there that he can’t remember what he even drank?)

He has to go back.

\--

Rayne isn’t after Willow, he realizes (far too late). What’s a little witch girl more or less to a servant of chaos? (That part he works out sooner, no matter what he’s being drugged with he can recognize the two-faced god Rayne keeps on the altar.)

“What do you want?” Giles asks. It’s late, it’s dark, and he doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting at Rayne’s table.

“What I want?” Rayne asks. “Lots of things, dear Rupert. Shall I take it from the top?”

“How about you take it from when you came to Sunnydale?”

“A Hellmouth attracts all sorts,” says Rayne with a shrug. “Once I got here, well, the fun just came to me. I thought the child would be enough—did you even notice the potential she holds?”

“She doesn’t need more power,” says Giles. “And not your kind of power.”

“No?” Rayne purrs. “I suppose she can live without my power. She’ll make her own way. You, though.” He reaches across the table and runs a hand along Giles’s jaw. (And he can’t move. He’s not sure he wants to, which has to be a spell. It has to.) “You’re something special.”

“No.” That’s an across the board no, though he’s not sure it comes across as one. “There’s...thousands of us.”

“Of Watchers, Rupert,” says Rayne. “But not of you. I’ve seen a great many things in this world, but I’ve never seen something quite like you.”

So he throws his drink (it’s scotch, he notes once it’s thrown) in Rayne’s face. The man laughs aloud and kisses him on the forehead.

“Won’t let you...” Giles says. The world blurs at the edges.

“No, you won’t,” Rayne says, almost gentle.

“You drugged me,” he slurs.

“On the regular,” says Rayne, from somewhere far away. “Sleep tight.”

(Like he belongs to a Dreaming court, that’s how he says it. And Giles should have thought of that sooner, because you’re not supposed to eat their food or drink their wine or follow where they lead, and he’s done all of that like an utter fool.)

\--

When he wakes up, the house isn’t there (and there’s no herb garden and no roses and no trellis, and Rayne isn’t there either), just an empty lot.

(And a splitting headache, and a book he can’t remember in his library and a missing six hours of his life.)

So he goes back to the library and tells Willow Rayne was called away and picks up his old texts on magic for the first time in decades (that’s not quite right, he’s picked them up, of course he has, but just not with intent to use them again). He’s a Watcher and he has a duty, to his Slayer but also to the world at large.

“Magic is a powerful tool,” he tells Willow. “If you aren’t careful, it can control you instead of you controlling it.”

“What happens then?” she asks (and gods, she’s genuinely curious).

“People die,” he tells her shortly. “Good people.” (He’ll light a candle for Randall, next time he can. Poor bastard hadn’t deserved death, and they hadn’t been much older than Willow is now.)

“I don’t want anyone to die,” says Willow. “I just—I’m good at something, and I wanna help.” (She’s still so very young.)

So he's going to teach her. There’s no one else he’d trust to do it. He’s also going to kick Rayne’s ass the next time they meet, whatever that is. It’ll be someday soon, he knows. (That sort of person doesn’t just give up and go. But that’s another story.)


	6. Rebels and Revelry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (or: how it may have actually happened)

Six hours into this whole rebellion thing and Ru—Ripper thinks he’s doing rather well for himself. He’s blustered his way out of a fistfight, found a hostel he could probably crash at, and gotten himself beer at a properly disreputable-looking pub while listening to some idiot abuse a bass guitar. (And he’d made it to London, that should definitely be noted too, for a while there he’d thought hitchhiking really wouldn’t work out.)

Anyway, the bloke on the bass is awful and the beer is cheap and the pub smells bad, but it’s...something. It fits, almost, like the leather jacket fits better than his academy uniform did and how Ripper fits better when he tries it in a mirror. It’s not perfect, but it’s closer. (It’s not lying. That’s what matters.)

He takes a long drink, distantly notes that someone's picking someone’s pockets three tables away, and forces his body into a more relaxed position. (It’s still a pretend relaxation, but he’s more willing to believe he’ll grow into that than into the ability to not care when people are dead.)

(They died screaming.)

He forces himself to focus on the fact that he thinks the beer is watered down instead, and that’s about when a bloody minotaur busts through the wall. (Even runaway and rebellious Watchers, apparently, can’t have nice things. That’s just proof.)

People start screaming, of course, (screaming never helps) and stampede away (which would likely be easier if they were more sober), and Rupert has to help, doesn't he? (Because people are in danger, he can't just sit by and he can't just run, but he flounders for what he can do even with Academy training and magic.) (That both is and isn't a statement of philosophy—he's floundering generally for a purpose, but more specifically minotaurs are almost impossible to kill and he doesn't think he's going to find a sword here, let alone the right sort with the right blessings.)

Anyway, he leaps up and starts herding people towards the actual exit, where a girl around his age (but with three piercings in her nose and a corset on) is holding the door open and counting heads as they pass. She catches his eye and mouths her thanks, then raises her voice over the din.

"Randall, stop being a moron, let's go!"

"We'll catch up!" Bloke-on-bass (Randall?) hollers back from where he's using a barstool as a battering ram in an attempt to keep the minotaur occupied. (Who's the we? He's the only person in sight not trying to get out.)

"We...?" the girl mumbles, then counts on her fingers and swears loudly. "Randall, move your arse!"

"I got this!" yells Randall, who very much hasn't got this. The minotaur snaps his barstool's legs off, and he throws what's left of it at the monster's head and grabs another one. (Points for tenacity.)

"T-that's not going to work!" Rupert yells, but he realizes it's supremely unhelpful as soon as it leaves his mouth. "Sword—It—Mate, I need a sword, you need a sword!" But there's no swords in sight so he shoves two more people toward the door, grabs the nearest heavy objects (a chair and a pint glass) and goes to help.

(The girl at the door yells "Oh fuck you" after him, and on some level he agrees with her.)

\--

Somehow, somehow, everyone (except some moron with a clearly damaged fight-or-flight response cowering behind the bar) gets out, but that still leaves Ripper and Randall trying to fend off a minotaur with things that cannot, in fact, damage a minotaur. Rupert loudly reiterates the need for a sword.

"Like a generally one or a special one?" Randall asks, dodging sharply out of the way of a flying half-bench. Rupert narrowly misses taking a minotaur fist to the face as he answers.

"Technically I need a blade augmented with an invocation of divine protection," he snaps. "But at this point, generally sword!"

"Fuck," says Randall succinctly. (A good analysis of the situation.)

\--

Randall bails on him a few minutes later, but comes back with a sword. It's neither sharp nor augmented with anything, but Rupert's trained with swords not chair legs so it makes him feel better. (And it's the little things that count, sometimes.)

They're actually doing okay. He lets himself think (stupidly) that maybe they'll wear the minotaur out, and that's opening enough for the thing to hit him. Hard.

Ripper goes flying and crashes gracelessly onto the bar (he hears something crack, which is either his ribs or the bar itself or both) while the sword clatters out of his grip. Stars bloom over his field of vision and he can't breathe and the monster's bearing down on him—

—"Oi, ugly!" Randall flings an entire table at it, because adrenaline is a hell of a drug. The minotaur turns, and Ripper struggles upright. Sword, sword, he needs the sword.

"I call you forth, in this your house—" someone whispers behind him, and it's not a whisper it's an invocation. Ripper twists around painfully and sees first the sword on the ground (it's chipped, oops) and second a graceful figure kneeling behind it, halfway illuminated in the light of a glowing chalice.

(Whoever it is is beautiful, but it's the beauty of magic and liminal space. Rupert's heard stories of the Dreaming courts, magic and madness that you aren't supposed to follow, aren't supposed to taste. Maybe he's been thrown into one, or maybe he stepped into one as soon as he walked into the pub, or as soon as he crossed the city line.)

"—Dionysus, master of revels, I invoke your power to protect those who seek their freedom in your domain. Hear my entreaty and—" There's a crash so loud that the ground shakes. "—and save our arses, please and thanks," the sorcerer finishes hurriedly, then empties the chalice (which may actually be a tumbler) over the sword.

The magic splutters, sparks, then hums like a motor, and Ripper feels manic energy course through him. He snatches the sword off the ground and leaps to attack.

\--

The manic energy and the magic alike go away very quickly once the monster's dead. Rupert's arms feel like jelly and he can't catch his breath and he's pretty sure he did crack a rib and there's blood running down Randall's face and the sorcerer looks a lot less like an agent of the Dreaming courts with his curly hair sticking out in all directions and two dozen bottles of beer floating around him.

"Go team," says Randall (and he sounds as exhausted as Rupert feels).

"Drinks on me," says the sorcerer, and he hands Ripper a beer. His eyes are magic-black and bright, and his smile is charming. (And he's still discomfitingly pretty, somehow. The fact that he's not hurt probably helps on that front, and Ripper wants to hit him just a little.)

"Don't think you paid for those," says Rupert, who really wants to say something else but can't quite articulate it at the moment.

"Not like we're coming back here anytime soon," says the sorcerer, gesturing at the damage around them. Rupert nods, because that makes sense. The man's grin widens, charming to hungry. "I'm Ethan. What's your name, green-eyes?"

(You aren't supposed to tell them, he thinks, or follow where they lead or drink their wine or eat their food or sleep where they can find you. But that's old stories, and he's left his name at the Academy and, after all beer and wine aren't much the same thing.)

He waves a hand and the cap pops off the bottle.

"Call me Ripper," he says.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [there are scenes and they're in you.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15549081) by [alphamikefoxtrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alphamikefoxtrot/pseuds/alphamikefoxtrot)




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